Two Big Strokes for Bethpage

Long Island's Famed Public Course Appears Set to Host 2019 PGA Championship and 2024 Ryder Cup

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The Bethpage Black course in Long Island during the 2012 Barclays tournament, still has to make its way through negotiations with the PGA of America before it hosts the two events
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By

John Paul Newport

Updated Aug. 13, 2013 10:07 p.m. ET

Long Island's storied golf behemoth, Bethpage Black, appears to have landed the 2019 PGA Championship and the 2024 Ryder Cup.

That Bethpage could host the PGA Championship, one of golf's four major tournaments, is a plenty big deal by itself. (Jason Dufner won this year's PGA on Sunday at the Oak Hill Country Club in upstate Pittsford, N.Y.)

But staging the highly partisan, Europe-versus-America Ryder Cup matches at Bethpage before traditionally raucous New York fans on one of golf's toughest and most historic courses, is a stroke of genius. Unlike at more staid PGA Tour events, it's not considered poor form at Ryder Cup matches for fans to wave flags, don costumes and actively root for one side and against the other.

"WOW. That will be insane," tweeted Keegan Bradley, who beat Dufner in a playoff at the 2011 PGA Championship and played his college golf at St. John's. Bradley rates Bethpage Black, one of five courses at Bethpage State Park, as his favorite course to play.

Phil Mickelson also appeared thrilled by the idea. He will turn 54 in 2024 and thus is a possible U.S. team captain for the Ryder Cup. "I think that will give the U.S. side a distinct advantage," he told reporters at the PGA Championship. "I love it. I've been quietly hoping it would go there for years. It's a perfect site."

Appealing as it may seem, though, it is not a done deal. Golfweek magazine reported Monday that Bethpage, which is operated by the New York State park system, and the PGA of America, which co-sponsors the biennial Ryder Cup matches with the European Tour, had reached an agreement.

Reached Tuesday at his office in Florida, however, PGA chief executive Peter Bevacqua said the report was premature. "Nothing to this point has been finalized," he said.

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Bethpage Black
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But Bevacqua didn't deny the report, either: "I don't think it's any secret that the PGA of America is a big fan of Bethpage. It's obviously a facility we've had our eye on. You don't need to be too smart to understand that bringing a major event to the greater New York metropolitan area is an exciting endeavor. It has all the necessary ingredients."

The Black, a public course that opened in 1936 with a design by A.W. Tillinghast, is by far the most difficult and famous of the five courses at Bethpage State Park, located in central Long Island about 40 miles east of the city. The availability of the other courses for parking and hospitality tents makes it an ideal venue for modern major championships.

The United States Golf Association staged both the 2002 and the 2009 U.S. Opens there. (Phil Mickelson finished second at both tournaments—a fate he'd hate to repeat were he to captain the 2024 U.S. Ryder Cup team.) Those events were so popular and successful, despite flooding rains that postponed the first round of the 2009 tournament, that one wonders how or why the PGA snatched Bethpage away from the USGA.

The two organizations are not exactly rivals, but tensions occasionally arise. This past spring, the PGA, as well as the PGA Tour, strongly opposed the USGA's decision to ban anchored putters, and some have speculated that the timing of the USGA's announcement of its mammoth new television deal with Fox Sports on the eve of last week's PGA Championship was not a coincidence.

Golf historian Phillip Young, author of "Golf for the People: The True History of Bethpage and the Black," due out in January, believes that Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was the state's attorney general in 2009, may have played a role. After the rain delays, Cuomo demanded, both behind the scenes and in the media, that the USGA offer fans refunds for their tickets or free admission on Monday, when most of the final round was played.

The USGA did, but Young claims that the incident damaged relations between Bethpage and the USGA, opening the door for the PGA Tour to bring the Barclays tournament to Bethpage in 2012 and again in 2016, and for the PGA of America's current negotiations with Bethpage for the 2019 PGA championship and 2024 Ryder Cup.

Bevacqua, who in 2009 was the USGA's chief business officer, said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on Young's theory. Attempts to get a comment from the USGA were unsuccessful. The USGA has booked Winged Foot, in Westchester County, N.Y., for the 2020 U.S. Open.

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